Stupid insurance letter.
I feel so stupid and idiotic around my therapist. She is pretty and smart, and I know that she's not perfect and doesn't have it all together, but she sure is miles and miles ahead of us in knowing how to handle life and people. I feel about an inch tall around her. Today she wrote this letter to our insurance company (BTW BLUE CROSS SUCKS) because they want good reasons why I don't just go see someone in their network. Like after 7 years we're going to just start going to see someone else. Don't think so. It took about 6 years just to start trusting our therapist. We're not going anywhere else and starting all over again. So she wrote this letter with all our diagnoses in it (more depressing than we even though) which even talked about everyone inside :( and then about recommending longer inpatient care. We are never going back inpatient, EVER. This is just not going to happen, for a good variety of reasons that we don't have to share with anybody, and shouldn't even have to justify to a single person. She also put how if the insurance can find someone else who can treat us better, how that'd be just great. We always feel like she can't wait to get rid of us. She always says "its just because I want you to have the best treatment". We feel like crap when she says that because it always seems like she can't wait to get rid of us. We KNOW we're a pain in the butt. We KNOW we're too much to handle. After reading that letter, all of us felt even lousier about ourselves and asked her to just forget it. We don't want all the things she wrote on our insurance record. We'd rather keep selling things on Ebay, and being cheap to scrape up money for therapy than have to go through THAT letter to get money for insurance. That letter was humiliating to read.
Session ended really lousy tonight anyway. i was having a flashback and it was time to go. held it together until i was out in the parking lot, then broke down. saw T in the parking lot, called her name (BIG MISTAKE, idiot), tried to talk to her for a minute, i'm sure she was annoyed, i am sending her a check to make up for the 5 minutes i took up of her time, i was having a panic attack and i should have just left her alone. Missy screamed at me on the way home while i pounded my fists into the steering wheel and then SI'd.
i hate myself. i feel like i'm worthless and no one wants me around. i'm nobody except a bunch of stupid, bad diagnoses on an insurance letter that someone wants to get rid of.
Posted by pilgrim | Filed under:
Awww, Pilgrim. No one IS their diagnosis. I do understand somewhat what you went through. It's horrible to hear certain words and concepts applied to US. It strikes at our pride, and threatens our dignity. But...that can be our illness talking, not who we really are, and can be, and will be. I mean, let's face it, depression alone distorts reality in a BIG way, so that your pencil breaks, and it's an omen that you have no business being alive. You know what I mean? I bet there are people so secure in who they are that if you sent them that letter and they really believed it was about them, they'd swallow hard then say, "well, tell me how to get better" My meaning is, don't let your illness make you ashamed of your illness. From what I know of you, you are a lovely young woman, an energetic and creative person, a dedicated teacher, perhaps a perfectionist (get over the pain of it, but know it comes from a very good place, and says very good things about you) and someone who cares enough about the world to invest her many talents into teaching. I'm not into flattering people, OK? Right now I'm in fu mode, across the board, I promise you. The most critical person in the world is telling you to ease up on yourself. You are a gifted, creative person. You are going to have troubles enough in the world, without getting bent out of shape over something as silly as a diagnosis, and letter between t and insurance.
So. You got your ego busted up over a diagnosis, that your t wrote out in order to make a case that you are NOT a run of the mill crybaby who can cry to any old t on the bluecross list, but a human being who has been hurt pretty bad, and let's let this one work with someone who knows how, since she's got real work to do. So she had to persuade someone, and she spoke persuasively. And made you sound really sick and effed up. That means she's a skilled negotiator. YOU don't have to take her words so literally.
I doubt she was trying to unload you. It sounds more like she was saying, "this young woman is worth the best available, so if there is someone better than me, let's access them."
Besides, her letter was a picture of your ILLNESS, not your PERSONALITY, or your HUMANITY, or your SELF. Think, of a ballerina, who does wonderful and intriguing things with her body, who can look one moment like a flower blooming, and the next like a baby about to be born...who can do and express so many wonderful things...and she has a lung condition, and one lung has a tumour, and the picture of the lung is awful and ugly...and she does what her doctors advise, and maybe her dance is compromised by her illness, maybe not, who can tell. I'm telling you, the picture of the illness may be ugly, but what the dancer does in her professional and personal life is lovely. Wouldn't it be a shame if she thought the picture of her illness made HER ugly, and was so humiliated that she compromised her ability to get treatment and keep on dancing?
Awww, Pilgrim. No one IS their diagnosis. I do understand somewhat what you went through. It's horrible to hear certain words and concepts applied to US. It strikes at our pride, and threatens our dignity. But...that can be our illness talking, not who we really are, and can be, and will be. I mean, let's face it, depression alone distorts reality in a BIG way, so that your pencil breaks, and it's an omen that you have no business being alive. You know what I mean? I bet there are people so secure in who they are that if you sent them that letter and they really believed it was about them, they'd swallow hard then say, "well, tell me how to get better" My meaning is, don't let your illness make you ashamed of your illness. From what I know of you, you are a lovely young woman, an energetic and creative person, a dedicated teacher, perhaps a perfectionist (get over the pain of it, but know it comes from a very good place, and says very good things about you) and someone who cares enough about the world to invest her many talents into teaching. I'm not into flattering people, OK? Right now I'm in fu mode, across the board, I promise you. The most critical person in the world is telling you to ease up on yourself. You are a gifted, creative person. You are going to have troubles enough in the world, without getting bent out of shape over something as silly as a diagnosis, and letter between t and insurance.
So. You got your ego busted up over a diagnosis, that your t wrote out in order to make a case that you are NOT a run of the mill crybaby who can cry to any old t on the bluecross list, but a human being who has been hurt pretty bad, and let's let this one work with someone who knows how, since she's got real work to do. So she had to persuade someone, and she spoke persuasively. And made you sound really sick and effed up. That means she's a skilled negotiator. YOU don't have to take her words so literally.
I doubt she was trying to unload you. It sounds more like she was saying, "this young woman is worth the best available, so if there is someone better than me, let's access them."
Besides, her letter was a picture of your ILLNESS, not your PERSONALITY, or your HUMANITY, or your SELF. Think, of a ballerina, who does wonderful and intriguing things with her body, who can look one moment like a flower blooming, and the next like a baby about to be born...who can do and express so many wonderful things...and she has a lung condition, and one lung has a tumour, and the picture of the lung is awful and ugly...and she does what her doctors advise, and maybe her dance is compromised by her illness, maybe not, who can tell. I'm telling you, the picture of the illness may be ugly, but what the dancer does in her professional and personal life is lovely. Wouldn't it be a shame if she thought the picture of her illness made HER ugly, and was so humiliated that she compromised her ability to get treatment and keep on dancing?
Awww, Pilgrim. No one IS their diagnosis. I do understand somewhat what you went through. It's horrible to hear certain words and concepts applied to US. It strikes at our pride, and threatens our dignity. But...that can be our illness talking, not who we really are, and can be, and will be. I mean, let's face it, depression alone distorts reality in a BIG way, so that your pencil breaks, and it's an omen that you have no business being alive. You know what I mean? I bet there are people so secure in who they are that if you sent them that letter and they really believed it was about them, they'd swallow hard then say, "well, tell me how to get better" My meaning is, don't let your illness make you ashamed of your illness. From what I know of you, you are a lovely young woman, an energetic and creative person, a dedicated teacher, perhaps a perfectionist (get over the pain of it, but know it comes from a very good place, and says very good things about you) and someone who cares enough about the world to invest her many talents into teaching. I'm not into flattering people, OK? Right now I'm in fu mode, across the board, I promise you. The most critical person in the world is telling you to ease up on yourself. You are a gifted, creative person. You are going to have troubles enough in the world, without getting bent out of shape over something as silly as a diagnosis, and letter between t and insurance.
So. You got your ego busted up over a diagnosis, that your t wrote out in order to make a case that you are NOT a run of the mill crybaby who can cry to any old t on the bluecross list, but a human being who has been hurt pretty bad, and let's let this one work with someone who knows how, since she's got real work to do. So she had to persuade someone, and she spoke persuasively. And made you sound really sick and effed up. That means she's a skilled negotiator. YOU don't have to take her words so literally.
I doubt she was trying to unload you. It sounds more like she was saying, "this young woman is worth the best available, so if there is someone better than me, let's access them."
Besides, her letter was a picture of your ILLNESS, not your PERSONALITY, or your HUMANITY, or your SELF. Think, of a ballerina, who does wonderful and intriguing things with her body, who can look one moment like a flower blooming, and the next like a baby about to be born...who can do and express so many wonderful things...and she has a lung condition, and one lung has a tumour, and the picture of the lung is awful and ugly...and she does what her doctors advise, and maybe her dance is compromised by her illness, maybe not, who can tell. I'm telling you, the picture of the illness may be ugly, but what the dancer does in her professional and personal life is lovely. Wouldn't it be a shame if she thought the picture of her illness made HER ugly, and was so humiliated that she compromised her ability to get treatment and keep on dancing?
My therapist gets very serious about SIing. If we were still doing that, we'd be right back inpatient (it's the majority of the reason we were there to begin with). Does your T know you SI or do you hide it from her? That's prob. why she's recommending inpatient. More of containment. I had a HORRIBLE inpatient experience in one place and a wonderful inpatient exp. at the ptsd/did hosp. in DC. Not fun to be away from family/friends, but, well, sometimes it's necessary in our case. However, we fight it every step of the way. Glad you can choose to stay out. Our therapist has pretty much said she will refer us on if we refuse inpatient when we're SIing. :o(
And yeah, BCBS sucks. They kicked us out of the hosp. before we were ready and paid a whole 22 visit to see therapist. Now it's $100 2 times a week.
I'm glad that u have a doctor u can trust. That's pretty cool! I've been looking at stuff online about DID and even found a site where the doc is posting a paitent's journal entries. the doc says all the names have been changed, but I dtill feel like that's not so great an idea for the doctor. I'm happy you share your feeling with so many out here though! thanks a lot!
I'm glad that u have a doctor u can trust. That's pretty cool! I've been looking at stuff online about DID and even found a site where the doc is posting a paitent's journal entries. the doc says all the names have been changed, but I dtill feel like that's not so great an idea for the doctor. I'm happy you share your feeling with so many out here though! thanks a lot!
Sorry you had such a horrible evening. Can you say how old your T is? Is she experienced with DID? I know you said you've seen her for 7 years. I've only been going for 4 months and cannot imagine changing to someone new, but sometimes I feel pushed out the door too. I think it's just a T thing and yes, it SUCKS. I have BCBS too and yep...you're right, they are horrible. BCBS is all my T accepts.